


Das Parfum

by AlluringMary



Series: Here Be Monsters [2]
Category: Fables (Willingham) - All Media Types, Fables - Willingham, The Wolf Among Us
Genre: 1980s, Eventual Romance, F/M, Pining, Reader-Insert, Scents & Smells
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-01
Updated: 2018-10-01
Packaged: 2019-07-23 07:11:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,160
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16154150
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlluringMary/pseuds/AlluringMary
Summary: It's the summer of 1982 and a mysterious man with hypnotizing eyes involved in some unusual business attempts to worm his way into your life.





	Das Parfum

**Author's Note:**

> I was waiting until the release of TWAU 2 to write a bit more but guess that's never going to happen!
> 
> I am devastated.
> 
> I was actually saving up to buy a ps4 JUST so I could play TWAU but now? You know what I'm gonna do?  
> Buy a super expensive mixer so I can become a profesionnal soccer mom and make some nice smoothies.  
> Fuck this.

As a fresh-faced officer straight out of the academy, you liked to consider yourself a pretty fit person.

 

 _Alright_ , there was this belly that refused to stay flat on your frame and _yeah_ , from a certain angle you kind of looked like you had a small pregnancy bump going on and _sure,_ your eating habits were far from being perfectly healthy.

However, your body was far from failing. For instance just minutes ago, you had been chasing after some mediocre thief who had tried to run out with some butcher’s cash register.

 

And yes, perhaps you had been able to catch up to him because the imbecile had indeed swooped in and lifted the _whole_ _damn thing_ off the counter instead of just taking the money. The fact that he was as slow as a goddamn tortoise due to the sheer weight of the register didn’t minimize your pride for your incredible fitness in any way.

Then when the man – really more a boy, less than 15 you’d say – was tackled, cuffed and thrown in the backseat of your patrol car, two clear problems presented themselves just as you went to open your door.

 

The register was peacefully sitting in the grass where you’d left it and your clothes were caked with mud and some blood form where the kid had literally bit you during the scuffle.

You took a deep breath, looked back at the teenager mumbling under his breath about pigs and whatever the hell mundy meant and headed back down to the park.

It was still fairly early in the morning so definitely empty. No one in their right mind would go out in a park at 5 AM although you had seen more than once women jogging at some especially odd hours. Your talkie-walkie had been busted during the scuffle, the radio in the patrol car had been jacked up since it had first been assigned to you exactly five months ago.

 

You looked down to the register, tapping it with the toe of your boot. The thing didn’t even budge, as heavy as it was.

 

“This is going to be a long day...” You mused, dreading to return to the station.

 

 

The lifting was tough but you made it. As ready as you were to go back home, clean up and change, the butcher refused to press charges against the thief and simply asked for his register.

 

“I did get it back in the end, no?” The balding man in his late forties asked, peeking at your notes as you wrote down his testimony, “That means there was no robbery.”

 

“Sir,” you began, containing a sigh, “it doesn’t matter if nothing was stolen per say, the fact that he took your possession, made off with it is criminal…” You underlined the accusations, “He also resisted arrest, assaulted an officer and has no ID on his person. I have to take him in, Mr…?”

 

“Johann.” Before you hit him with another question, he said, “Listen, I know the kid. He grew up right on this block and… well he’s going through some hard times.” His tone changed quite drastically, from anxious to pleading, “Please, he can’t afford another warning. I’ll talk to his pops when I catch him this afternoon.”

 

The dubious gaze you pinned him with must have been worrying because the pitiful look you received in return made him look like a fucking kicked puppy.

“Please, officer… He really is a good kid.”

 

Looking up at the man, you considered your options, take the kid in and waste a precious hour to process all the paperwork he’d generate at the station even though your shift had ended half an hour ago, or let the idiot go and head back home to sleep.

How was this even a choice?

 

“Alright,” You swiftly closed your notebook, “I’m letting him go… Johann. But if I catch him one more time, he’s going straight to juvie.” You fixed him with a glare, “And that is not a joke.”

 

The pure look of relief on his face and the lighthearted laugh that followed your threats were genuine, you realized. The large man put a hand on his chest, sighing once more.

“Thank you, officer. I’ll be sure to keep a close eye on him from now on.”

 

The kid basically scrambled out of your car the second the door opened, “There are bigger things than me to catch, mundy.”

You chose not to respond because a) you were tired and needed to go back home in the following minute and b) that new insult was really fucking ridiculous, the things teens came up with nowadays...

Wow, you were getting old.

 

You took off the handcuffs and watched the kid go to Johann, rubbing his wrists as he went. The older man wrapped an arm around his shoulders and headed back inside the butcher’s shop.

The harsh whisper made you look up from where you were arranging your cuffs on your belt, “Wait until Mary hears about this!” The butcher said under his breath as he pushed the kid around inside his shop. “What were you thinking!?” The door closed with a small jingle of a bell, the image of the two men blurry and their voices silenced behind the dirty glass.

 

Now, as most events in your life, you should have thought more about this encounter.

 

However, the Bronx was a strange place.

You had once arrested a woman chasing her boyfriend with a serrated knife in the middle of the street only for her man to get down on one knee on the side of the squad car to propose to her – who was still cuffed, mind you – in the backseat as both you and your partner at the time watched in muted silence.

“This city is wild, young grasshopper.” Ferguson had joked as he drove you towards 161st street, “The Bronx will drive you crazy if you don’t become jaded to it all.”

 

So, instead of wondering who this Mary was or why you should care anyway about some random deadbeat dad and his son with no future whatsoever, you drove back to the station.

You sneaked in, hoping Captain Nighthorse wouldn’t see you in your muddy and exhausted state and pin you with a dress code violation. You got a few eye rolls and compassionate glances as you progressed through the halls with the eventual snickering when you passed by the water fountain.

 

When you finally reached the office, you were greeted with a “You look like shit,” from Montolla who sat on the other side of the counter, she outright laughed at your tired expression, brown eyes alight with amusement. “What happened to you?”

 

You swept the pen off the counter, carefully searching for your car’s license plate on the registry. “Some kid tried me.”

 

The woman leaned in, looking for the info with you, “That why you’re bleeding?”

 

“He bit me.”

 

You quickly left a snorting and giggling mess behind, taking long strides to get to your own wheels.

And there was no boss in sight! That meant no pressure to fill in another shift or give up your afternoon AGAIN.

If the numbers of patrol shifts you had taken combined with the extra paperwork he loved to dump on you were worth anything, you hoped an upgraded paycheck would follow soon. You had been acting for the last three months as a mix between a regular trooper and an investigator since your superior had taken a shine to overworking his men.

_“_ _You’re like my little pawns on a checker board,” He had said dreamily into his fifth coffee of the morning, “God, I love my job.”_

 

After a quick trip to your locker and an even quicker shower, you were clean and ready to get the hell out of the station. You were feeling your keys inside your back pockets and wrestling with your unfashionably large purse when one of the devil’s lackeys actually walked right into you, bumping your shoulder all the while aggressively typing something on her beeper. The brunette cursed under her breath before stopping right behind you.

 

If you had the possibility, you would have rolled around on the floor right there and put on the biggest temper tantrum in existence. You were tired and ready to wail your head off at this very moment.

The push hadn’t bothered you but knowing Branningan, she was sure to announce you were still at the station to Nighthorse so he could lock in on your last known location like a torpedo and fetch you himself and force some more work on your poor tired shoulders before you had the chance to escape.

You turned around whilst praying to a silent God but she didn’t do the same, kept her light brown eyes on the red dots on her machine and simply mumbled your last name in some sort of disgruntled greeting before continuing on her way and otherwise ignoring you.

 

Intrigued, you had half a mind to poke for answers but decided that a busy and distracted Branningan was something you liked.

 

You strode the rest of the way, juggling your keys in your hand. Today was free of any stress. You’d disconnect your phone at home, heat some leftovers or order some greasy pizza from the bizarre joint down the street, watch soap operas or fall asleep on that novel you meant to finish and nothing would come to tarnish the rest of your day.

 

Finally seated into your car’s old discolored leather seats, you took a deep breath in. The engine came to life with a purr, the gates opened leisurely and as you drove on the roads free of commute, you thought about the bed and the AC waiting for you at home.

 

Unbeknownst to you, just a few feet from where the detective had just ran into you, an interrogation was underway. Branningan entered the interrogation room B and sat right across a walking and very real nightmare straight out from a twisted fairy tale.

 

Said nightmare had not taken his eyes off the gruesome photo resting on the table, his eyes suddenly glazed over and lost.

The scent that had followed Branningan inside screamed of _mate_ , sending his thoughts into a frenzy and his heart thumping in the confines of his chest. A scent laced with that of earth and rust but unmistakably the scent of a woman.

Not sweet, Christ, it was almost tinted with a bit of salt… coagulated blood. Inhaling hard to capture the scent once more, he was nearly lost, deaf and blind.

Nonetheless, it was subdued. As much as he focused on it – heavens, he could hear his own pulse crashing in his hears – it was impossible for him to track it down.

Only Snow’s remained.

 

Oh, Snow.

 

Once he looked at the investigator and took a whiff of her, the irresistible scent that had been clinging to her was already fading. It had been something stupidly infinitesimal, barely perceptible, not even an ounce, not something he could qualify as a real smell and yet at the same time, he had this unerring gut feeling that it was something he had never came across before, something he wanted to investigate.

By the expecting look on Branningan’s face, she must have thought he was overwhelmed by the piece of evidence sitting in front of him.

 

Momentarily frozen by the alluring scent which had – ~~pleasantly~~ rudely, might he add – assaulted his senses, he looked down at his cigarette which he held in a shaking hand before taking the longest drag he could without looking like a complete lunatic to the mundy before him.

He could feel the tar coating his lungs, the smoke burning his nostrils and dismissing the pleasing fragrance. The smoke did its job and the new scent grew faint before completely disappearing.

 

It couldn’t have been a fable.

Not here anyway.

He would have known if a fable worked for the NYPD and he would have already smelled them before, he would have encountered them at least once.

 

The mundane before him took his pack in her hand but her words came out a jumbled mess, twin thumps emanated from the room adjacent to the interrogation room and he watched, slightly worried as Kelsey Branningan fought to keep her head up and eyes focused on him, mumbling under her breath when he asked what was wrong.

In the end, whatever that had caused the collapsing of the two men behind the one-way mirror won over and with a final curse, the detective’s head bounced off the table, her cheek crushing the empty cigarette pack just as her eyes rolled back. Shortly after, the door opened and the feeble and emaciated frame of Ichabod Crane and his usual sneer planted on his grotesque face only reinforced the fact the day had only just begun.

 

First, Snow.

Then, The Other Woman.

**Author's Note:**

> I'd say there will be around three chpaters? Maybe two?
> 
> I'm not sure, please don't hate me.
> 
> Also, I have come to realize I have a thing for big emotionally constipated and unavailable men who may or may not have the ability to turn into a big murderous pile of fur so do expect more stuff like this in the future.


End file.
